Scientists help create greener dairies

PRAIRIE DU SAC, Wis. — Cows stand patiently in a tent-like chamber at a research farm in western Wisconsin, waiting for their breath to be tested. Outside, corrals have been set up with equipment to measure gas wafting from the ground. A nearby corn field contains tools that allow researchers to assess the effects of manure spread as fertilizer.

Scientists based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have started a slew of studies to determine how dairy farms can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. They will look at what animals eat, how their waste is handled and the effects on soil, water and air.

Their work is part of a government-sponsored effort to help farmers adapt to more extreme weather and reduce their impact on climate change. The studies also will support a dairy industry effort to make farms more environmentally friendly, profitable and attractive to consumers. The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy is developing a computer program that will allow farmers to compare water consumption, energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from their farms to the national average and learn how improving their practices could help their bottom line.

“We like to say sustainability makes cents — c-e-n-t-s,” said Erin Fitzgerald, the center’s senior vice president for sustainability.

Environmentally speaking, the big issue for dairy farms for decades was manure.

Karl Klessig remembers state agents coming to his farm in 2002 and handcuffing him after an unexpected rain washed manure spread several days earlier into nearby Lake Michigan. Klessig was told that if his family didn’t immediately till the manure into the ground, tearing up the grass that feeds their cows, he’d soon be in jail.

It was a big loss, but it “jump-started” their environmental awareness, Klessig said. The family welcomed researchers from UW-Madison and UW-Extension onto its property in Cleveland, about 70 miles north of Milwaukee, for tests that had some unexpected results.

For example, the family had been leaving its pastures untilled for up to a decade to allow the grass to build up density, feeding the cows and reducing erosion. But scientists found that also allowed phosphorus to accumulate in the top layer of soil. Klessig said his family has been able to reduce phosphorus by tilling pastures more often and growing corn, which uses phosphorus to grow.

They also learned the farm was losing hundreds of pounds of soil each year through its drainage system and wormholes were allowing manure to run into those pipes. It was nerve-racking to have researchers point out these problems, Klessig said.